Piecing together the evidence.

So Wrestle Kingdom 10 and Pro Wrestling Dash are in the books, and they give hard credence to some ugly rumors Dave Meltzer, the journalist par excellence of the pro wrestling world, has been spreading. If rumors are to be believed, New Japan's top talent is headed to WWE.

Apparently, AJ Styles, "The Machine Gun" Karl Anderson, Doc Gallows, and Shinsuke Nakamura are all headed to WWE. We've been told a number of things, including that AJ and Nak come with a steep price tag and that they're by passing NXT (WWE's developmental system) and headed to the main roster. Meltz has even said the Royal Rumble might be AJ Styles' debut in WWE.

We know that Styles dropped the IWGP Intercontinental strap to Nakamura during his WrestleKingdom 10 match and gave his notice shortly thereafter. We know the next night at the Pro Wrestling Dash event Styles' faction, the Bullet Club, turned on him with a beat down, thus effectively writing him out of further New Japan storylines. Dave Meltzer has changed his story and says the deal is on the table at WWE headquarters but AJ hasn't signed on the dotted line.

Meltzer has also said Nakamura will be working a "notice tour" and dropping the IWGP Intercontinental Title to someone rather than leaving without dropping the belt as WWE's Alberto Del Rio did with AAA's MegaCampeonship. At Pro Wrestling Dash, Kenny Omega (apparently the new Bullet Club Leader) announced he was moving from the Junior Heavyweight division to Heavyweight and making Nakamura his first target. This leads to a write-out in the storylines for New Japan for Shinsuke Nakamura should the rumors be true.

"The Machine Gun" Karl Anderson and his tag team partner Doc Gallows are different. There's been no evidence beyond Meltzer's insistence the two are coming. What we do know is that Anderson is a good friend of Jason Albert, the current WWE Developmental head trainer. We know Anderson worked with Albert during Albert's final New Japan run, and that Jason Albert has been actively campaigning for Anderson to come to WWE. Doc Gallows is a different animal; he's been to WWE before as "Festus" and "Luke Gallows" of the Straight Edge Society faction. Gallows likes money just like anybody else and would probably follow his long time friend to NXT, where their buddy "Ferg," aka current NXT champ Finn Balor, would love to see his friends.

We've seen Gun and Gallows wear "Balor Club" shirts in support of their friend. At WK10, Anderson wore trunks with Balor's "Demon" logo on them. And recently, Balor posted a picture of himself wearing a Bullet Club T shirt outside the WWE Performance Center looking at his phone with the caption "They should have been here by now...."

It appears as though the MLW Radio podcast "Talkn' Shop" has also mysteriously disappeared from the MLW lineup. I wouldn't fault MLW for doing that, or Gun and Gallows leaving that podcast behind, because WWE is a publicly traded corporation and not too many shareholders would like the kid-centric approach often taken by the organization to get diluted with two members of the roster drinking beer, cursing, and discussing topics including, but not limited to, onanism.

Finally, an article has surfaced on WWE.com called "Are AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura, Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows coming to WWE?" under the rumors section. This would give any fan great pause to think the foursome is coming to WWE, because a policy for ages of that organization has been "if it's not our talent you don't talk about them." The article isn't just a brief gloss over of the rumor mill, it's also got a strong component outlying the histories of the foursome. That lends further credence to the rampant theories.

And at this time that's all we know. No contracts have been signed of which we know, no physicals passed, no doctor clearances, nothing else. That's all. At this point the speculation is just that. Speculation.

But if the rumors are true, this is a major coup for the WWE. I just hope they treat all four men right.